Reacting and Adapting
by Marcus S. Lazarus
Summary: In the aftermath of Washington, Xavier contemplates how best to use Logan's knowledge of the future to shape the future of the X-Men.


Disclaimer: I own nothing; you know the drill

Feedback: Always welcome

AN: Just a one-shot speculating on how DoFP influenced Xavier's actions between the Washington confrontation and Scott Summers coming to the school, set a few days after the confrontation in Washington; hope you like the results

Reacting and Adapting

The more Professor Charles Xavier studied his notes, the more he wondered if this was why he'd never encountered a mutant who could foretell the future; just those brief glimpses at Logan's memories and his 'talk' with his future self were giving him headaches, so how would someone cope having to see something like that all the time?

He was experienced enough with telepathic contact to know that he couldn't have received _everything_ that Logan and his future self had experienced in his brief moments of mental contact with them- quite apart from the unconventional nature of the whole experience, while telepathy might be a very fast means of communicating, even it had its limits- but he also knew that they'd each been determined to give him a fairly clear timeline of what had taken place in their history, as well as determine where and how he could or should take action to 'correct' what had happened.

On an immediate note, the mystery of where Logan had gone was a problem, but it was one that Xavier thought it best to leave for the moment. While he was concerned about what would become of his future friend, there was no reason to believe that he would experience anything fatal, given his unique powers, and the 'past' Logan would have enough questions about what he had been doing over the last few days without Xavier and Hank trying to tell him what had taken place.

He owed Logan a great deal, but considering what he'd seen of the younger Logan, it would be easier to let him come to the school on his own time, rather than trying to seek him out and having a repeat of that incident in the bar before Cuba. He would miss the friendship he'd formed with the Logan of the future, but he couldn't force it to happen ahead of schedule; he had met Logan in the original course of events, so he just had to have hope that he would still meet the healing mutant later.

Speaking of the future, the issue of his future X-Men was one that Xavier was still debating with himself about. For the moment, he was hoping that the X-Men wouldn't be needed now that Raven had demonstrated so clearly that not all mutants were against humanity, but that didn't mean that he could leave his future students to fend for themselves, particularly when he had seen what they were all capable of at their peak.

He wanted to have faith that they wouldn't turn into a new Hellfire Club without his influence, but after seeing what Raven could have become in that future timeline, he had to decide when he should approach them without coming across as unusually insightful or interested.

Ironically, while Scott was the one who would be most easy to contact, he had already decided that inviting Alex's brother to start early would have been a mistake on several levels. Alex's relationship with his parents was generally strained given his inability to explain just why his criminal record had been cleared back when he'd joined the first team, and as far as Xavier could tell, Scott's ability hadn't even manifested itself yet. He could certainly justify keeping a close eye on Scott, given how powerful Alex's abilities had been and the potential for Scott to inherit similar genes, but it wasn't time to bring Scott into the school just yet.

As much as Storm's power intrigued him, Xavier could think of no way for him to make contact with her ahead of 'schedule' that wouldn't have raised awkward questions about the nature of his interest in her. In the end, since he knew that he would have had some reason to meet her in the original timeline, he had decided to let events run their course; he'd keep an eye on things in Africa in case Raven's actions inspired the future Storm to do anything extreme, but for the moment, it was probably safe enough to leave things as they were.

Of course, when it came to Jean Grey, he already knew that he had no choice but to do things better than what had unfolded the first time around.

While he could understand his future self's reasoning for establishing those mental barriers in her psyche to protect her from her full potential in the original course of events, with the benefit of hindsight, it was disturbing to see how he'd essentially been repeating his old mistakes with Raven. In both cases, he found someone that he shared something profound with, set out to form a close bond with them to explore their potential, and then he ended up 'teaching' them that the only way the world would accept them was if they hid what was different about themselves from everyone else.

With Raven it could have been excused as her natural appearance would have attracted too many questions in public, but he still could have been more relaxed about her going 'blue' when they were alone or once she started training with the early team, and as for Jean…

Based on what he'd seen of his future self's memories of Jean and Logan's final confrontation with her, it appeared that his older self had simply made the decision for all concerned parties that the best way to help Jean was basically impose his own limits on her powers, rather than help her control them. Maybe he'd still been experimenting with the serum when he met her in the original course of events and felt 'obligated' to resort to more extreme measures to limit the risk of her powers, but now that he had his future self to prove that he could control his telepathy, he had to work out what he was going to do before he made contact with her.

All he had to do was determine how best to help Jean harness that power without letting it overwhelm her. Locking them away was out of the question, but he had to find the balance between letting her become comfortable with them and risking her becoming arrogant; telepathy could be a dangerous power for more than just the risk of picking up too many thoughts, after all.

He'd give himself a few days to wean himself off the last of the serum and adapt to the restoration of his powers, and then he'd see if he could find Jean and begin instructing her in the proper use of her telepathic abilities, introducing her to Cerebro while claiming that he'd found her as he was testing it after it had been rebuilt (Which would have the advantage of being fundamentally true; he'd just omit the fact that he'd been looking for her deliberately). Hank had offered to work on refining the serum to help him retain some telepathy while also being able to use his legs, but Xavier had declined. He appreciated that Hank didn't want to lose the ability to mingle with regular humans, so he wasn't going to begrudge his friend for continuing to use the serum, but even if Erik had been angry, he'd made a valid point that hiding away in the mansion wasn't going to help humanity accept mutants.

Whatever awaited in the new future that Logan had helped them create, he was going to make sure that he was ready to help his future students, which meant reaching a point where he could instruct them all without feeling like a hypocrite for hiding away from his powers because it was too difficult.

He would need to be cautious around any future dealings with William Stryker, of course- he might want to believe that people could be better than their mistakes, but from what Logan and his future self had shown him that man had no interest in even trying to be more than what he was- but with all the information he'd received about his future students, he had faith that he could help them all reach their full potential.

Now, once he'd straightened out the rough timeline he'd received from his future self, he could make a start on bringing them all together at the school.

He forced down the part of his mind that worried about what threat might arise in this new timeline; mutants might have been exposed a few years ahead of schedule, but if the debut had been peaceful, it couldn't have any serious consequences…

* * *

AN 2: To comic fans, I am fully aware of the existence of Destiny, AKA Irene Adler, in the comics, but since the movie franchise has dropped no hints that she exists, I feel safe assuming that no mutant in this series has developed precognition just like the MCU stated that psychic powers are impossible (Wanda's powers can be seen as manipulating matter and sensing fear rather than telepathy/telekinesis); most of Jean's nightmares of possible futures in the movies can be identified as the Phoenix making her afraid of what she might do and then putting those fears into practise, or her sensing Apocalypse on some level and thus aware of what he could do rather than seeing what he was explicitly going to do


End file.
